


I'll Take the High Road

by radrezi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternia-Focused, F/F, Road Trips, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radrezi/pseuds/radrezi
Summary: "Mind control?" Terezi asks, intrigued. "Try me."Vriska says nothing as she layers tomatoes, ham and cheese on bread and puts it on a plate. Terezi brings her still-full mug of coffee to her lips and takes a sip. Then another. Then she has chugged everything. Vriska clinks two plates down in front of her."Was it shitty?" Vriska asks, gesturing at Terezi's empty cup. Terezi stares down at her hand and then looks up at Vriska."Very clever." She says, "Am I supposed to be impressed?""Are you?""It wasn't bad.""I try my best.""The coffee, I meant.""Fuck off and eat your sandwich.""But then you'd have no one to talk to.""But you would never leave."---The first fan fiction I've written in which Terezi isn't a miserable crybaby





	I'll Take the High Road

 

Terezi looks at the glass in her hand, it's nearly empty and as she holds it at a slant she can see the warped reflection of her feet through the glass bottom. It's filled with some kind of punch, is what she assumes it must be, but she feels tipsy and it looks and tastes a lot like spiked Faygo. She guesses that in this day and age the real definition of punch is any liquid with alcohol in it. Puddle of acid rain on the sidewalk? Add some booze and it becomes punch. Load gaper? Same deal.

Terezi smiles privately at her warped feet, God she's funny. She is beginning to consider a career in troll comedy before her daze is interrupted by a small hand nestling on the top of her shoulder. It's Nepeta.

 

"Terezi, are you good there?" She asks, she's more happy than worried, of course she would be, it's her wedding-type-thing day. "Can I get you anything?"

 

Terezi smiles at her friend, baring her teeth some to show she's being sincere and lifts her glass a bit.

 

"Oh, no, I'm fine, I was just going to get some more of that... That punch." She grins again, she's being so very sincere.

 

Nepeta beams brighter after hearing that a guest at her party isn't having a miserable time because it's one less thing to fixate on afterwards. "It's not punch," she says, "It's just Troll scotch. Me and Karkat decided that one big glass bowl being broken was better than lots of little glass bottles." She giggles. Terezi giggles with her and throws in a cackle for good sincere measure.

 

"Right, I'll go get some more Troll scotch," Terezi says as she starts backing away, glass raised higher, any higher and it would be above her head, "Now stop talking to little old me and go be with Karkat. You haven't got too much time together, best make the most of it."

 

Nepeta is sad and her pretty little face shows it but her friend is out of designated chatting distance so she smiles again and waves slightly. Terezi lifts her glass upwards until it scrapes the sky before she turns and walks faster to the refreshment table.

 

She ladles Troll scotch into her cup until she can't see her warped feet anymore then she sneaks a glance at the back of her, she sees Nepeta skip up to Karkat who's busy being noogied hard by Sollux, Nepeta's beautiful pale green dress bounces with her as Kanaya looks on happily, proud of her handiwork. "Karkitty!" She chirps as she latches on to his arm and he stops yelling at Sollux and smiles at her, then they turn towards themselves, holding each other up and Karkat laughs.

 

Terezi puts down the ladle with a little too much force and stands at the table, her feet shoulder-width apart and her hands planted firm on the silken tablecloth, squashing a few flowers underneath them. She takes her glass in her hand and drains the liquid as fast as possible. This takes a while since it is a very viscous drink, not at all like what scotch or even punch should be like, but this is Troll scotch and you don't get to make the rules.

 

She lowers her glass and chews on what seems like a beetle - which, again, is not ever permitted in other scotches and rarely allowed in most punches - and sighs deeply. She's about to go for a second round because the sight of her feet at the bottom of the glass abhors her, but she is interrupted by the bride and groom, arms linked as they saunter up, synchronised as though they must have practiced this daily and Karkat raises his own glass towards her, a centipede bobs and thrashes at the surface of his Troll scotch and quite honestly Terezi thinks she's been overusing the whole Troll scotch joke.

 

"Terezi," Karkat says, "you might want to take it easy on the booze." He smiles politely at her and she smirks back.

 

"Yeah, no," Terezi tries to laugh it off and grabs at another plate of confectionery to cover up, "Yeah, actually I was, um, I was just about to find you lot and, uh, wish you all the best because really, I've gotta go." She whispers the last part like it will make everything better.

 

Her hosts both look crestfallen, their drinks lowered to the point of skimming the floor and she sees what she's got in her hand and it's a wad of paper towels. She puts them in her pocket and fakes a sniffle like she'll be needing them on the way, thanks.

 

"Aww, come on Terezi, it might be the last time we see each other again!" Nepeta pleads, her eyes twinkle sadly, "Don't you think you can stay for at least a few more minutes?" And she pouts the cute pout that she knows works on Terezi.

 

Terezi thinks. Yes, in two perigees she and her friends and all the other trolls unfortunate enough to have been born in her sweep and survive this long will be ushered onto a ship and blasted into space like Troll Laika to fight and kill in orbit until they die, and there's a zero in infinity chance that any of them are going to be on the same ship. She is about to stay with them for at least a few more minutes, then the day and then until they must part and witness their happy proxy matrimony, but she wonders what good part she could possibly play in their happy proxy matrimony and she'll have to witness their ugly tears as they hug one final time and are dragged onto separate ships and launched as far in opposite directions as the universe will allow for the Empire has no sympathy for quadrants, they compromise the loyalty of the heart. Terezi still has her hand in her pocket and she pulls out her palmhusk, turning it on and looking at the blank screen.

 

"Yeah," she says, fake dismay plastered thick on her face, "It's urgent. Aradia-" her nose shoots toward the ghostly figure holding a plastic cup, she's the exception to the warped feet rule because the material plane dislikes her very much - case in point as the beverage slips right through her grasping hand and splashes onto the floor and anything within a metre. Sollux is already wearing rubber rain boots, lest he short-circuit, and nothing gets on him, he laughs and raises his own glass to Aradia's lips and she purses them slightly but takes a sip anyway.

 

"I mean," Terezi looks back at her expectant hosts, "It's my mother. She needs help with something and she said it was urgent. I've really got to go, I'm sorry." With that, she slips out via the gap between Karkat and the table, through the partying crowd and out the door while her hosts wonder how her mother, an egg, could possibly text her about something urgent. She thinks she's lost them but they walk, arms linked, synchronised, their glasses drooping miserably and they stand by the door as if joined at the hip, the shoulder, the heart.

 

"Are you driving?" Nepeta asks and Karkat seamlessly adds, "After all that Troll scotch?"

 

Terezi looks up from throwing everything out of her pockets to find the keys to her scuttlebuggy.

 

"Don't worry, I've got it on auto-pilot." She says and she tilts her head forwards so her friends can catch a glimpse of her ruby red eyes, useless for everything but crying, her pockets are empty and she hasn't found her keys. Karkat steps in.

 

"Terezi, why don't come back in and have a rest. You - pardon me - don't look all too fit to be driving."

 

Nepeta chimes in, right on cue, "The moon's about to go down, come on, Terezi, you have to drive across the country, take a nap first!"

 

"It's okay, I hired this buggy and it's due back tomorrow. Besides, I'm taking the highway. It's a straight line." Terezi finds her keys and jingles them in front of her, then she unlocks her scuttlebuggy and all but throws herself into the warm, fleshy interior and shuts the door. She waves to Karkat and Nepeta and they wave back, glasses sloshing Troll scotch dangerously close to the rims. They stand, how she wishes they would go back in but they stand, somewhat confused and more than a little disturbed as her buggy roars quite literally into life and putters down the road. Far enough until she cannot see the two specks, one in pale green, one in black and their fibres of hands waving to her as she moves beyond the horizon.

 

As soon as they're out of smell Terezi hauls herself into the backseat and lies, not at all comforted by the warm and moist seat that morphs itself, with a grotesque sound, into the shape of a headrest beneath her head. She sighs, loud as she likes, and runs a hand through her hair. Thank God that ordeal is over! She thinks, shaking her head to rid it of any bullshit that may have lodged itself between her ears. Now she can be herself. Her total, unabridged self, for better or for worse, and she reimagines the scent of Karkat's smile, his pointed teeth that have remained miraculously intact after all these sweeps, his deep dimples you could drink Troll scotch out of and his eyes-

Terezi slaps herself. Get over it! She thinks, It's over! He chose her and she's your friend so he least you can do is be happy for them and keep your selfish thoughts to yourself!

She sits back with her feet on the windowsill, suddenly calm except for the stinging on the side of her cheek which she does think she deserves. She's going unabridged now, it's over.

For kilometres the buggy scuttles along the winding highway, the burning highway, and Terezi knows she would sleep but she can't risk being mugged by bandits in the day, the day is coming, creeping like a volatile infection across the sky. She hauls herself up and through the gap between the front seats and fucks around with the control panel. Some metal plates creak and groan down in front of the car windows. Still, she does not sleep.

 

For hours the buggy putters along. Terezi sits in the front seat with her feet on the dashboard and she licks her palmhusk every now and then but no one texts her. Not even her mum. The sun is searing at the top of the sky now, it must be near noon and the TGPS tells her that they might not be back before midnight. Terezi groans. She's not sure if this was worth it to see her friends fake marry, of course she's just being selfish, but why would they go through all that emotional investment just to get killed in space a million lightyears away from each other? She doesn't understand it. It must be a weird thing, love.

Of course, she's happy for them. So happy she's decided to spend all the money she would have saved not taking the train on petrol and coffee by taking the scuttlebuggy. Speaking of which, she's running low. On petrol, she means. And coffee, too, she guesses.

 

Serendipitously, the TGPS tells her that there is a highway cafe within the next few kilometres. Terezi tells the TGPS to head over there and pats it thank you on the dashboard. It purrs. In minutes, Terezi risks a sniff through the slanted metal panes in front of the window and smells beyond the scorch of a million forest fires a set of two buildings, one is a Troll garage and the other is some kind of restaurant. There is also a petrol pump beneath a canopy. The canopy is on fire. Terezi wonders, as they grow closer, if petrol is flammable. Then she laughs to herself for thinking such a stupid thing, why could petrol possibly be flammable? Any species who made flammable petrol deserved full well what was coming to them.

 

As the scuttlebuggy putters to a stop in front of the pump Terezi gets out, grabbing and opening up a big metal umbrella as she steps out, the burning ground making her hop around even through her Troll crocs. Hopping and standing on one leg, Terezi takes the nozzle off the pump and aims it at the trough next to her buggy. "Fill'er up." She says and she presses a bill into the slot. A bright blue liquid, viscous as the Troll scotch sitting at the bottom of her stomach oozes out and into the trough while the buggy slurps it up greedily. Once she's pumped as much petrol as she can afford she replaces the nozzle and heaves her great umbrella across the clearing, playing hopscotch almost, until she reaches the big metal doors of the restaurant.

 

Inside it is refreshingly cool. As Terezi opens the door the air floods out and into her flushed face. The automated grub squawks awfully to let whoever is tending to the place know she's there. Terezi closes her umbrella and leaves it in the doorway, then walks towards a booth and sits, it creaks and dust rises all around her. The door to what must be the kitchen opens and a troll steps out, wearing a raggedy old uniform which looks too small. The troll is tall, slender, with long, brittle hair scratched back into a small-hoofbeast-tail and then threaded through the moth-eaten cap on her head. She has thick-rimmed glasses and one eyeball with seven pupils, she wears lip gloss and the tiniest amount of blusher, as if to try and redeem the dignity she lost when she accepted her job here. Two fangs protrude out of her upper lip and rest on her lower, and both lips are dragged down at the ends. She does not look happy.

 

"Come over to the bar," she says, standing on the other side and not moving, "I'm not walking all the way there."

 

Terezi gets up and walks over, then pulls up a chair and sits on it, not complaining about her waitress's attitude because if she's being truly honest she does want to see this troll up close.

 

"You want coffee?" The troll asks.

 

"Yeah, do you have sandwiches here too?"

 

"We did. If you wanted one, you should have come before day."

 

"Well, then, what other excuse could I possibly have for staying here?"

 

The troll smiles and walks to the right, reaches under the table and tosses a withered piece of card at Terezi. It's handwritten in awful Troll cursive and the ink is barely legible due to old age and it's creased beyond repair. Terezi sniffs hard, trying to avoid having to lick this decrepit menu. The troll takes out a cracked mug with cobwebs spun around it so that they seem to be the only things keeping the cup from falling apart entirely. She places them on the counter as she spoons coffee grubs from a soiled cardboard box into a kettle. It hisses as she fills it with water. She puts it on the stove and holds it down but it swipes at her and she gets a cut on her arm. Terezi flinches at the scent of blood but Vriska doesn't seem to mind. "She's feisty," she says, without looking at Terezi, blood trailing in rivulets down her arm, "but she knows if she overdoes it I can replace her." The kettle sighs, resigned to stay in its place and a thin puff of steam coils upwards, the troll lifts her hands off the top and turns around, smirking, hands raised to welcome applause but going down when she recieves none. The cut on her is clotting quickly as the massive amount of blood on it dries.

 

"What kind of sandwich do you want?" She asks, rubbing at her arm with a dirty washrag.

 

Terezi remembers that she's holding the illegible menu and scans it once more, but she can recognise no words.

 

"I'll have the first one." She says.

 

The troll puts a bloody hand on her hip and smiles. "You're the first person to ask for a sandwich in a sweep. How am I supposed to remember which comes when?"

 

"I meant I'll have sandwich number one."

 

"I didn't number them."

 

"I'll have the 'up your ass' sandwich with chips, please."

 

"Now you're just making things up."

 

"Well you try making something up, then, because I can't read your handwriting."

 

She advances and takes the card from Terezi, she puts it in her pocket and laughs.

 

"It wasn't a menu, dumbass, and there's either old bologna and old cheese on old bread or nothing."

 

"That's what I said, an 'up your ass' sandwich."

 

The kettle spits boiling water onto the troll's back and she rounds on it, arms outstretched.

 

"That's the last straw," she snarls and grabs it by the handle. It squeaks as she pours two mugs of coffee, "I'm getting rid of you." She puts it under the sink and it huffs twice like it could care less. She slams the cabinet door shut and padlocks it for good measure. She has a jar of assorted padlocks on the counter.

Terezi sniffs around to see if any other appliances have been locked away for misbehaving.

 

The troll sighs, wiping her still bloody arm over her forehead so she leaves a streak of cobalt there. She slides Terezi the less cracked mug while she pulls up her own chair and sits in front of her. Up close, Terezi can see her eyes are heavily bagged and she has eyeliner on, but its crooked on one side due to carelessness. Although she's game for a joke and seems almost wild at times there seems to be some kind of underlying sadness poorly hidden beneath her caustic demeanor, an ever-lingering tear in her eye and her lips are always pulled down by the weight of the world. She sees Terezi staring.

 

"Don't look too close or you'll fall off your chair," she says suddenly and Terezi jumps. She grins, but she hides her upturned lips behind her leaking coffee cup, making more than a ring stain on the table and when she puts her mug down she's frowning again.

 

"You look familiar. What's your name?" Terezi asks in an effort to redeem herself.

 

"Vriska. They didn't give me a name tag," she explains, "because no one wants to remember the bitch who gave them shitty coffee and the middle finger on their road trip through to the far side of nowhere." She looks into her mug but the coffee has leaked out and formed a puddle between her elbows. Terezi is glad she doesn't have to mentally refer to this troll as "that troll" anymore. Unless she wants to.

 

"I swear I've seen you before." Terezi says, holding her own mug but hesitant to drink because of what the brewer herself just told her, "Have you been on Troll TV?"

 

Vriska laughs and gets off her chair. "If I have been, it can't have been for any good." She takes the chair over to a tall set of overhead cabinets and clambers on top, opening the topmost one and feeling around before closing her hand on a bag of white bread and leaping down. "What," she says, looking at Terezi's steaming mug, "drink it. I locked my kettle under the sink for that coffee."

 

Vriska moves on to the counter and the kettle yowls long and hard when it sees her legs go past, throwing itself against the doors but they don't give. Terezi is determined to find out why she looks so familiar and she asks,

 

"What, were you arrested for something and you were on the news?"

 

"You could say that."

 

"Were you on a judge show?"

 

"Sure." Vriska dices tomatoes.

 

"Really? What did you say?"

 

"I asked him if he needed a whore."

 

Terezi guffawed. "Well, did he?"

 

"No, but apparently I needed six months in prison." Vriska opens a mini-fridge on the counter and it starts to groan. "Now don't you start," she tells it sternly and it stops immediately. The kettle blows steam through the sink drain in a fit of indignation.

 

"What did you do in the first place?"

 

"Nothing illegal. I was just potentially dangerous."

 

"How so?"

 

"I don't know, I was a blue, everyone below blue is terrified of blues, I could control people's minds just like any other blue and when the below blues saw I was vulnerable they pounced." She brings out some ham and cheese.

 

"Mind control?" Terezi asks, intrigued. "Try me."

 

Vriska says nothing as she layers tomatoes, ham and cheese on bread and puts it on a plate. Terezi brings her still-full mug of coffee to her lips and takes a sip. Then another. Then she has chugged everything. Vriska clinks two plates down in front of her.

 

"Was it shitty?" Vriska asks, gesturing at Terezi's empty cup.

 

Terezi stares down at her hand and then looks up at Vriska.

 

"Very clever." She says, "Am I supposed to be impressed?"

 

"Are you?"

 

"It wasn't bad."

 

"I try my best."

 

"The coffee, I meant."

 

"Fuck off and eat your sandwich."

 

"But then you'd have no one to talk to."

 

"But you would never leave."

 

Terezi shrugs and picks up her sandwich. It's beginning to get soggy because of the tomatoes sitting inside but when she takes a bite it tastes fine. Good, even.

 

"You're selling yourself short." She says with her mouth full, "This is fine."

 

Vriska hasn't touched her own sandwich but she picks it up and crams as much in her mouth as possible before answering, "I wouldn't feed you the shit I give other people. The coffee, too. That's my own supply."

 

"Where did you get it?"

 

"The delivery boy. He's a good kid. He'll die very soon but for now he's naive and that's good for me."

 

"Potentially dangerous, huh?"

 

"I'm not hurting anyone, stealing a box of good coffee from the back of his truck if I'm the one carrying the crates and heavy shit while he sits in the front twiddling his thumbs because he can't walk!" While she says this she is also stuffing her mouth in silent competition with Terezi and when she reaches the exclamation mark she spits out a ball of chewed up sandwich.

 

"That's disgusting!" Terezi laughs and she spits hers out too, they both laugh and Vriska tries to throw her sandwich at her and Terezi falls off her chair but springs up and runs to the booths and Vriska launches another ball of goop at her but she can't aim straight, she's chortling so hard so she leaps over the counter and chases Terezi, laughing their heads off all the while and the kettle howls and fumes with rage but they don't care, Vriska jumps onto Terezi, her cap falls off in the fray and she won't let go and Terezi won't stop running until she falls and they lie on the ground laughing and gasping for air, looking at each other and laughing again then coughing but still laughing, turned towards each other on the dusty floor as dust rises up around them and they try and fail many times to calm down.

 

"I- I don't remember you from Troll TV though," Terezi says and she giggles.

 

Vriska is too busy choking on laughter to reply with more than a wheeze.

 

"I think... I think I might have seen you around my district. In the library?"

 

"The library... I used to hang out in a library." Vriska says once she can catch her breath. "Sure, nerdy teals are the easiest ones to get on a drug habit."

 

A little light in Terezi's head goes off.

 

"Right! You were that creep who would always be reading awful vampire books in the Troll Fiction section!"

 

"Fuck off, it was a cover. How many people in a library ever read Troll Twilight? One, the drug dealer. Me."

 

"You enjoyed it."

 

"I did not!"

 

"You craved the delicious romance between Troll Edward and Troll Bella," Terezi whispers in dramatic tones, "for it was a forbidden one and subsequently one without restraint once achieved and you found it was an escape from your dreary life, one where danger's reward is euphoria and not survival, maybe some werewolves too, I don't know, I never read it because I'm not a fucking dork-"

 

Vriska pushes Terezi and interrupts her monologue with, "You're a dork!"

 

"You read Troll Twilight!"

 

"I was a drug dealer!"

 

"Now you work in a highway cafe in the middle of nowhere!"

 

"Because I got caught and paid bail and escaped!"

 

"So I could turn you in right now?"

 

"You could, or I might be telling you a whole load of bullshit."

 

"Well, why would you want to do that?"

 

Vriska lies sprawled out on the floor like she's been making Troll snow angels in the dust.

"Now I've told you about me," Vriska says, her tone slightly somber and Terezi is afraid she might start frowning again, "tell me your bullshit." At this Vriska smiles and the knot in Terezi's stomach releases. She smiles and leans on her elbows, looking down at Vriska on the ground.

 

"I was on the way home from a happy proxy matrimony. Not mine. Some friends."

 

"Happy proxy matrimony?"

 

Terezi chuckles, "They fake married, but you know, in a couple perigees they're both getting shipped off opposite ends of the universe and they'll never see each other again." She shrugs. "It's stupid, all that unnecessary emotional attachment."

 

"I don't know, it sounds sweet, in a way." Vriska gazes into Terezi's eyes strangely, in a way neither have experienced before.

 

"Really," Terezi asks, "Who would you happy proxy marry?"

 

Vriska sits up, a lost look on her face. "I haven't got anyone like that." She says absent-mindedly. "Not yet."

 

Silence.

 

"I remember you," Vriska says and she seems to have snapped out of some kind of daze. "You were the one reading Troll Nancy Drew books in the beanbag all the time, weren't you? I always wanted to use that beanbag, but you were in it all the time."

 

"Maybe I was," Terezi says carefully, "and maybe I wasn't."

 

"You totally were, I see you there." Vriska guffaws, "And you think my reading Troll Twilight is dorky!"

 

"Because it is. There is no plot. Troll Nancy Drew is all plot."

 

"How would you know if you haven't read it?"

 

"I haven't read it, I was just assuming."

 

"That's a moderately specific assumption to make."

 

"Are you defending Troll Twilight?" Terezi cackles and she gets up and dances around in a fit of glee, "You like Troll Twilight, you like Troll Twilight!"

 

Vriska shakes her head and chases Terezi around the diner once more, yelling about how bad Troll Nancy Drew is compared to Troll Twilight, specifically touching on how two-dimensional the characters are and how this is a direct result of such a plot-driven tale and what a bad person Troll Nancy Drew is to her friends but mostly her boyfriend Troll Ned Nicholson, who, other than being completely neglected beyond Troll Nancy's leaving him in the dust when she inevitably winds up investigating some big case, serves no other purpose in the story whatsoever.

 

"Oh, did you just assume all of that on the spot?" Terezi taunts Vriska before being tackled to the ground and tickled relentlessly.

 

"I may have skimmed through a book or two-" Vriska begins to say, but gets the air knocked out of her as Terezi flips over and pins her hands to the ground, giggling madly.

 

"Stop it!" Vriska forces out between fits of laughter, "Okay, okay, I did read a few of the books. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

 

"What fuss?" Terezi enquires, forgetting that she's the only one keeping Vriska from tickling her again, and Vriska worms out of her loosened grip and backs away.

 

"Truce!" She says, holding up her hands and breathing heavily.

 

"Truce." Terezi agrees. "Now, what fuss?"

 

"Your fuss, of course! Every single day, you were reading another one of those books!"

 

"You noticed?"

 

"Only because you were in the beanbag!"

 

"If you wanted to sit in it so badly you could have come over and asked."

 

"And you would have let me use it?"

 

Terezi mocks thinking for a second, head tilted and a finger on her chin. "No," she says and Vriska shoves her, "I would have told you to go fuck yourself."

 

"Rude!"

 

They both laugh some more and push each other around like Troll poker chips but once Terezi smells the darkness beginning to creep in through the dusty shutters on the windows she stops running and Vriska slams into her.

 

"What was that for?" Vriska asks, not recognising what her friend is looking at.

 

Terezi moves away from Vriska and keeps her nose turned towards the window. "I should go, I've spent way too much time here."

 

"I gave you a sandwich, what other excuse could you possibly want?" Vriska smiles when she says this but Terezi doesn't. She just keeps backing away.

 

Well, Terezi thinks, no one's going to miss me at home, but what am I doing here, running around a restaurant with the waitress? She looks at the troll standing in front of her, shoulders slouched and a confused expression on her face.

"I should be going," Terezi says again, reaching for her palmhusk to remind Vriska that her mother, an egg, texted her about something urgent, but no luck, it's in her buggy. Guess she can't use that trick again. She feels the wad of squashed napkins in her pocket and Vriska thinks she's getting ready to pay. She'll also upright, flushed in the face, like Terezi and she says, "No, your food's on me."

 

Terezi takes her hand out of her pocket and they stand facing each other, staring at each other, blush not fading from their cheeks and there seems to be a certain electricity in the air around them.

 

"Thanks." Terezi says and she breaks whatever bond festered between them and starts to walk towards the door. Vriska follows her but stands in the doorway as Terezi takes her huge umbrella and walks with objective out to her scuttlebuggy, who's obviously antsy about how long she's been gone and has licked the trough clean. When she reaches it she pets the window and it purrs, unlocking the doors but she doesn't open them. Not yet.

The doors lock and unlock again with more of a squelching sound than a clicking one and the buggy is obviously very ready to move on. Terezi puts a hand on the door handle, but it doesn't feel right. She stands with her hand on the window and looks in, in at the four empty seats and her palmhusk sitting charging on the dashboard.

The lights on the screen flicker wildly as if to say, "Please, I've been waiting so long, let us go," but she doesn't go. Once more, she looks at the empty seats inside. She'd cause a lot of Troll pollution if she drove all the long way home alone in there. She notices her reflection in the window pane and it's slightly warped because the glass curved outward and she abhors it. She doesn't want to see that.Instead she looks back at the restaurant and sees Vriska standing at the door, not wanting or unable to move. From even here she can see that the world is hanging fast to the corners of her lips and she looks sadder than when Terezi first came in. Terezi smiles and pats the side of her scuttlebuggy again.

 

"What are you waiting for?" Terezi shouts across the clearing. "Come with me."

 

Vriska grins wide and disappears within the cool interior of the diner. Terezi stands by her car and waits for Vriska to get whatever meagre belongings she must have in there but is surprised when she comes out with only the kettle under her arm, it's squirming to get away but she holds it firm. She kneels to the ground and puts the kettle on the floor, it bounds out and runs away but then turns back to look at her. "Go on." Vriska says, straightening up. "Go on and leave me be. If I get to escape from this shithole then you do too." And the kettle must understand her because it runs off into the setting sun. She laughs, putting a hand behind her head and pulling out the hair tie she must have hand in there for years and her brittle locks fall around to frame her face as she undoes her ratty apron. She's walking over to Terezi, hand over her head to shield her from those last deadly rays coming from the sun but suddenly they both hear a rumbling coming from beyond, the sputtering of an engine that's been going for too long and a big truck comes over the horizon and towards them.

Vriska stands and waits until the truck screeches, very literally, to a stop in front of her. The windows roll down and a young troll, face full of freckles juts his face out as far as he can without the windows obstructing his huge horns.

 

"Uh, hi, Vriska!" He squeaks, equal parts cheerful and nervous and Vriska smirks at him.

 

"The, uh, last two crates to the left are, um, for you."

 

Vriska walks around to the back and the delivery troll presses a button that opens the back doors. As he does this he notices Terezi, tired from standing and holding that tonne umbrella and folding it up as the sun has set fully. He waves at her and she waves back. Vriska comes around, not holding any crates but a little glass bottle in each of her hands. She walks past the delivery boy.

 

"Vriska, uh," He squeaks, his voice much higher than before, "those aren't, uh, for you."

 

"Fuck off, Tavros." Vriska says as she turns to him and he visibly shrinks into his seat. "No, really, fuck off. You've got a sweep left on this huge planet and you go down the same dirt road every day. Go find someone and have adventures together. Blow up a God damn building. Count the stars in the sky. Do something with your miserable life before it's over." She gazes at the boy with some kind of jealousy on her face, as if she wishes she had figured this out when she was his age, with things to do and time to spare. "Someone's gotta take the high road around here." She mutters.

 

Tavros seems to have taken inspiration from this little speech and he pipes up. "Okay, okay, I'll do that! But, uh, Vriska, would you help me down?" He frantically fumbles at his seat belt.

 

She laughs and begins to walk away. "Not me, Tavros. Find someone else."

 

She gets to Terezi's scuttlebuggy and Terezi opens the door for her before she gets in herself and the buggy all but takes off, it's so ready to get on the road. They laugh together as they look out of the back window and see Tavros fall out of the truck and writhe on the ground. Vriska holds up a bottle to Terezi.

 

"Troll scotch?" She asks.

 

Terezi takes it. "Don't mind if I do."

 

The taste is smooth on her tongue and she rewrites the bad memory associated with the scotch as she chews thoughtfully on a bug.

 

"Where are we going?" Vriska asks.

 

"I don't know." Terezi answers. "Where do you want to go?"

 

Vriska puts a hand in her pocket, hesitates, then pulls out a slip of paper. It's the menu she gave Terezi earlier.

 

"What is that?" Terezi says, trying to take it but Vriska holds it up to the dark so they can see better. It's a kind of treasure map, from the looks of it, complete with sea monsters and a big red X. Vriska points to the X. "Let's go here."

 

Terezi laughs and snatches it out of Vriska's hands. "A treasure map!" She exclaims, "That's even worse than you reading Troll Twilight! You dork!"

 

Vriska seethes and takes it back from you. "It's the last thing I've been able to find from my ancestor." She explains as she stretches the paper between her hands in a vain attempt to make the severe creases seem less apparent. "It's the real fucking deal."

 

"Really, well, then your ancestor must have been a dork too."

"I'm about to make you lose that free sandwich." Vriska says it with a smile on her face but Terezi can see she's got a half mind to actually do it. Terezi holds up her hands. "Okay, I've stopped. Put whatever that place is in the TGPS."

Vriska holds out the map to her. "I've never driven a scuttlebuggy before, you do it."

"It's always a good time to learn."

"How gallant of you." Vriska says, the sarcasm almost dripping down her chin. Terezi scoots over as Vriska squishes and squelches her way to the dashboard and fucks with the various knobs and buttons unsuccessfully until the scuttlebuggy loses patience and goes into semi-lockdown-sulking mode.

"Fuck you." Vriska says to either Terezi, the buggy or herself, moving back and taking a swig out of her Troll scotch.

Terezi tries to suppress her mirth as she takes the tattered paper and leans over to counsel the buggy. It begrudgingly loosens the knobs and she enters in the coordinates as far as she can smell, then the buggy takes a turn off the highway into a narrow strip of grass-framed dirt that Terezi had never noticed come up.

"Next stop: wherever this thing takes us." She says as she throws the map over her shoulder and begins to wriggle past the fleshy front seats.

And she sits back with one arm cradling the bottle of Troll scotch and the other around Vriska.

"I'd go wherever - with you."

 


End file.
